An example of the Norwegian welfare state, this roadsign informs visitors that children wearing nineteen-fifties frocks are here to help any men who’ve got one leg screwed on backwards. Bicycles are free.
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A Bad Guide 
¡jajajajajaja! / hahahaha!
Why does the girl have the hilt of a small dagger protruding from the base of her skull?
And what’s she hiding up her left sleeve?
A secret weapon of course.
But it’s still being matter of investigation whether this weapon is used to dominate grown-ups or to convert them in bicycles… It could be the same, clearly.
The girl is Pippi Longstocking; you can tell by the protruding braid. She is a tough little character; she is barefoot, even though it is so cold that the man has put on a knitted cap. Is it possible that they are dancing?
She does look like Pippi, but it also reminds me of the silhouette drawing of Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin at the end of The House At Pooh Corner (this is the closest I can find).
Why are the man’s trousers American length?
American length
Huh?
American length
In Germany in the ’70s. one said about men whose trousers were too short that “they’re flooded” (sie haben Hochwasser). It was generally believed that Americans were especially liable to this condition. I actually did see many American tourists in Bonn (where I was living then) wearing checkered multicolored pants the hems of which rode higher than their socks.
I’ve heard the expression “floodpants” over here, too.
Off-topic, really, but I knew an American expatriate in Europe who always bought blue jeans that were about six inches too long. He wore them neatly doubled up at the cuff — rolled up, like.
It’s the same in Norwegian: “Venter på høyvann“, according to my wife. In England, we said his trousers were at half mast.
Dearie’s talking about this. I’m pretty sure American men’s trousers were often shorter during the 1960s, and I find it’s shown in the TV series about that period, Mad Men. In England, where tailors said your trouser crease should “break” once, on top of your shoes, we thought the style had something to do with the US military; but I can’t find any pictures of US soldiers like that, so perhaps it’s not true. Here is a mid-60s British imitation. Levi Sta-prest trousers subsequently became a skinhead fashion item (around about 1967). Skinheads wore also Levi jeans exaggeratedly short.
This is very charming, especially the glove I assume someone found and had the consideration to tuck under it. (In my Moscow park we hang found items from trees.)
I don’t know why men’s pants were so short in the 60s in the US. But it’s true. Now, of course, the grubby look is to wear them 7 inches too long. Heh! Kids these days!
Sometimes those gloves stay there for years, especially the ones belonging to very small children.
The man’s left leg looks strange if you think that he and the girl are walking towards the viewer, but they are actually walking away. But now it looks almost like his right foot is on backwards! But all in all I think he just walks with his feet in a V (the opposite of pigeon toes).
Blue jeans at one time were made so long in order to accommodate different leg lengths for the same waist size (like men’s pants that you buy unhemmed), and then I think they were made even longer in order that even tall men could fold up the bottoms.
A charitable judgment, m.l.
Are you saying, Marie-Lucie, that Levis are no longer sold in sizes like 32/34 or 36/38? I used to sell them and at one time could just look at a customer and spout its waist/inseam size. I will be sad if that has ended….
INCHES, too! Nothing metric there!
catanea, of course men’s pants are sold by waist size, and sometimes with inseam sizes too, but at the very beginning I doubt that levi’s were made in several pant lengths, hence the necessity for most men of rolling up the bottoms, something which became fashionable, hence the extra-long pants. However, it is quite a while since I have had anything to do with buying pants for a male, so I am not up to date on the question!